Tag Archives: defects

Life in Pennsylvania just got a lot more dangerous. Caving in to unscrupulous car dealers, Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill that was opposed by the nation’s leading auto safety organizations, that will make Pennsylvania into a dumping ground for unsafe recalled cars.

The new PA law in Pennsylvania allows car dealers to get away with selling defective recalled used cars, without getting the safety recall defects repaired first — no matter how hazardous the defects are.

Similar car dealer bills have failed to pass in other states, including New Jersey, California, New York, Maryland, and Virginia. The only other state to pass such a law is Tennessee, where dealers got legislators to sneak their bill through under the radar, on the last day of session, with no public discussion or debate.

The Pennsylvania legislation was opposed by the nation’s leading consumer / auto safety organizations, and by Ralph Nader and Alexander Brangman, whose daughter Jewel was killed by an exploding Takata airbag in a recalled Honda Civic.

Republican Rep. James R. Santora carried HB 1898 at the behest of the car dealers like CarMax, which recently lost a major appellate court decision in a case brought by a customer in Bakersfield, California, Tammy Gutierrez. That decision may set a good precedent for other consumers who have been sold dangerous recalled used cars.

Pennsylvania’s new law allows car dealers to fatten their profits by low-balling consumers who trade in cars with unrepaired safety recall defects, then turn around and sell them at top dollar to other consumers — without getting them fixed. All they have to do to comply with the new law is to slip a copy of the safety recall notice in a stack of papers — instead of making sure the cars are actually safe to drive.

In fact, the law actually is worse than that, because it says if the dealer fails to even provide this sham type of “disclosure” to an unlimited number of consumers, all of those violations of the law count only as a single offense, punishable by a mere $1000.

It’s a violation of federal law for car dealers to sell recalled cars as NEW cars. While there isn’t a similar specific federal law to protect used car buyers, many state consumer protection laws exist to prohibit such practices.

Currently, state laws in PA and the other 49 states prohibit violations of the common law duty of care, or prohibit engaging in unfair or deceptive acts and practices, acting with negligence, or causing a wrongful death. Such laws – which apply to all businesses, including car dealers — carry potentially extremely serious sanctions.

But under the new law, car dealers won’t have to worry about being held liable if someone is injured or killed.

The biggest beneficiary under the new law will be CarMax, the nation’s largest retailer of used cars. Research performed by the CARS Foundation, MASSPIRG Education Fund and the Frontier Group found that over 25% of vehicles CarMax offered for sale in 6 locations across the nation had at least one unrepaired safety recall. Many had multiple safety recall defects. One pickup truck CarMax advertised for sale in Massachusetts had 6 unrepaired safety recalls, including two for catching on fire.

You’ve probably noticed the ads. They’re on TV, at sports events, and on the radio. CarMax has an enormous ad budget and spends millions to paint a rosy picture about the cars it sells. But behind all the hype, dangerous cars with killer safety defects are lurking.

CarMax boasts that all the vehicles it offers for sale must pass a rigorous inspection, before they can be sold as “CarMax Quality Certified” vehicles. But what they don’t want you to know is that they fail to get the FREE safety recall repairs done.

Instead, they charge top dollar for cars with killer safety defects. In fact, according to a recent survey of CarMax vehicles for sale in California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, over 25% of the vehicles they offer for sale have unrepaired safety recalls. One truck had 6 unrepaired safety recall defects — a deathtrap on wheels.

CarMax is the largest retailer of used cars in the U.S. They took in over $15 billion last year, but they don’t care enough about the safety of their customers to hire employees and give them the job of delivering cars to franchised car dealers for repairs and picking them up when they’re ready. Instead, they are perfectly willing to put the lives of their customers, their families and friends and other passengers, and others who share the roads, at risk, to maximize their profits.

One of the most common defects in CarMax cars: hazardous Takata airbags that are prone to exploding with excessive force, spewing metal fragments at drivers and passengers. Over 20 people have been killed by these ticking automotive time bombs. Here’s what can happen at any time to hapless consumers who end up riding in cars with the faulty airbags:

The crash that killed Jewel was basically a fender-bender. The recalled Honda that caused Jewel’s death was sandwiched between two other cars, in a low-speed crash. Everyone else walked away. But a metal fragment from the exploding airbag sliced into Jewel’s neck and she bled to death.

The only way CarMax is going to stop endangering lives is for their own customers to speak up. We hope that happens before there are more tragedies like the one that killed Jewel Brangman.

Did CarMax sell you a car with an unrepaired safety recall? If they did, we want to hear from you. Such sales are very likely a violation of state consumer protection laws. We encourage you to fight back.